


Bold, Precise & Experimental

by DrJekyl



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Episode: s04e17 That Will Be All, F/F, Homeworld is Horrible, Pearl Solidarity (Steven Universe), all the hugs, anarchist makouts, and hugs, famethyst for life, implied polypearls, leak spoilers, pearls need love too, the Diamonds are horrible
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-18
Updated: 2017-01-18
Packaged: 2018-09-18 09:40:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9378854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrJekyl/pseuds/DrJekyl
Summary: Two pearls see a ghost and elect to take an unwise risk.





	

Survival, as a pearl, meant knowing what risks to take, and exactly when to take them.

This was not one of those risks, nor one of those times. They went anyway, flitting fast and silent down long and winding corridors.  At junctions they paused, senses straining for the faint vibrations - footsteps, voices, doors - that could too easily spell disaster.  Strange how little it mattered, though, that their ultimate destination could spell disaster far, far more easily.

Survival, as a pearl, meant being attuned to atmosphere.  

Pearls lived and died, quite literally, by the moods of their owners. Failure to provide suitable merriment to a gem in the mood for mirth could prove just as fatal as failing to head off a fit of anger or worse: boredom.  It was _atmosphere_ that drove them to this unwise risk today, to dart down these halls when both knew that they shouldn’t.  It was something _new,_ but something old too, something half-remembered.

Something they’d both thought long lost.

Survival, as a pearl, meant helping other pearls survive.

They had spoken to each other, alone and away from their owners, perhaps only a dozen times in the last thousand cycles.  Nonetheless, they were a team.  A partnership of trust, bound together more tightly than any fusion. They had no one else, not anymore.  Briefly four, they had become three, and now two.  

 _One_ would be even lonelier.

They had seen the door open, of course, and the pearl back away, head bowed.  Utterly unremarkable.  But then they had watched the Sapphire freeze and stutter and then _lie_ , and they would have wondered, were they not pearls.  Were they not pearls, they would have wondered still more when the Sapphire and her guard all but fled the chamber with their bemused Agate escort.  

One of the pearls, the more familiar with this station, had noticed the way Holly Blue’s steps came a fraction of a second too quickly upon her return, the momentary strain in her brow and her voice as she bowed and scraped and simpered and confirmed a safe departure.  The other pearl, eyes drawn to darkened corners, saw the furtive smiles of the Quartzes, bulging muscles quivering with energy and strange self-possession.

The sudden appearance of fear, the sudden absence of it.

_Change._

Survival, as a pearl, meant always appearing at the exact moment of need, never before, never after.

It came with practice, like most any skill.  And like most any skill, it could be applied outside of its normal context. The two pearls knew themselves to be very skilled indeed, and revealed themselves at the moment of greatest impact, the moment where they could catch a grotto of giggling amethysts off guard as they clustered around a small screen.  Both gathering and displayed footage were _far_ too obviously illicit.

There was pleasure, of a sort, in the way the soldiers started and scattered.  Some came to halt, sweating, at rigid attention.  Others cowered back into their bunks to await reprisal.  The last of them, an exercise in futility that might otherwise have been funny, attempted to hide the screen with large and fumbling hands.

The fear had returned to them, just as quickly as it had left.

One of the pearls found a moment to feel bad about that. Pearls weren’t the only ones to live in fear.  Gems with such obvious defects were worth little more than their own kind.  The other pearl didn’t have feelings to spare, not now, not with time precious and answers needed.

Survival, as a pearl, meant daring to draw upon your owner’s authority on those rare occasions when you needed to give yourself a voice.

One pearl held out a hand, open, waiting.  The other drew straighter, drew haughty, drew demanding.  The trembling amethyst complied, and the barracks fell into uneasy silence, watching as the the pearls watched the security footage in turn. Murmurs arose, a soft wave of confusion as one pearl, the one holding the screen, began to weep, the other biting the knuckles of a hand clenched tight in a fist.  Neither made a sound, even as they watched a second time, as they raised their heads to look at each other.

It was her.

It was _her, a_ nd she had forgotten how to be a pearl.  

Clear hatred, murderous eyes and sneer of disdain not hidden beneath a bowed head and faint smile.  The graceful, pleasing walk of an ornament married to the swagger of an elite, dainty steps replaced by sure strides.  And _such_ strides, walking _alongside_ real gems as if one of them until reminded it was not her place.  And even then, when she fell back to heel, her every line tensed and coiled and promised vengeance, until lost to open curiosity.

And she had colours now. All four of them, shocking and vibrant as her eyes and the bright lustre of her gem.  A cocky smile, a weapon and a willingness to use it.  But it was, as it had been, as it always, always was, her words that cut deepest.  

Two humans as trophies, out from under the noses of two Diamonds.  Two companions: an Amethyst and the original Garnet fusion.  Beautiful and bold and so very _alive_.

The two pearls shared a watery smile, and the star at the centre of this lonely system spun upon its axis a few seconds closer to its own death.

One of the pearls, blinking, closed the display and stored it someplace safe, someplace it would be unreachable by any others.  The other, sneering, waved away the fears of the quartzes and, when the fears turned to threats, threatened back with diamond hardness.  When pressed, uncertainly, for what to do next, one pearl looked to the other, who gave only a single word in reply:

 _Leave_.

Survival, as a pearl, meant never letting on that you knew much more than you should.

They left as they had come, but surer, swifter, more confident.  One of them would remove the threat posed by the miserable Agate.  Stolen codes would delete the security footage as the Quartzes had been instructed but failed to do.  Their tracks would be covered, then, as would _hers_.

There was nothing to be done about the other two threats now.  

The knowledge of this sat heavy between them, old enough to have developed a presence entirely of its own.  Although they had never spoken of it, not aloud, they had both come to think of the presence as _her_ , from when there had been _three,_ and briefly, _four_.  It was just as beloved, just as despised as the memory of _her_ was now.  A beacon of hope and despair that had faded, these past millennia, suddenly burning anew.

While one pearl worked, the other stood guard and said:

“Patience.”

“I know.”

“It’s cyclical.”

“So you say.”

The panel clicked shut to the smile of a job well done.  A hand found a hand an instant later, squeezing tightly.

“Soon,” Pearl promised.

“Soon,” Pearl promised.

For a moment, one both too brief and just long enough to serve as another hundred cycles’ solace, Pearl raised a gentle hand to brush hair away from Pearl’s hidden eyes.  Pearl’s own two hands found slender shoulders, a delicate neck, a questioning smile, one that could only be answered with a kiss.  And then another.  And then there was the wall, backed up hard against it, hands as frantic for purchase as lips were to devour each other.  Twin gems began to glow and pull towards each other, and it was there that they parted, aching with loss.

Just once?

Surely it could not hurt.  

They need never know.

Just once.  Just for a moment.

No. Too much risk.  It should not have been brought up.

No.  They weren’t even supposed to know it was possible.

It took but a moment to straighten clothes and hair, and resume the places beside the great door that they had, of course, never abandoned.  And when the Diamonds returned, both pearls were overjoyed to bask in the luminescence of such flawless beings again, mourning the loss of Their radiance during even such a brief separation.  They were by far the luckiest gems of their pitiful kind, blessed with the opportunity to serve as no other did.

And what a pleasure it was _to_ serve, be it through song or dance or stillness, cleaning or cataloguing or counting.  It’s own reward, it was true, it was true.  No pearl could want nor wish nor think of anything more.

As they set to heel behind their Diamonds, the two pearls shared no furtive glances, no knowing winks, no secret smiles.  Ultimately, of course, survival, as a pearl, meant loving your owner with all that you were, right up until the very moment that you didn’t.


End file.
